Most expensive music download ever? Neil Diamond fan charged £2,600 by phone company

Would you pay £2,600 for a Neil Diamond album? Probably not (Picture: Getty)

A mathematics teacher clearly didn’t do her maths when, thanks to data roaming charges, she was hit with a bill for £2,600 after downloading a Neil Diamond album on her phone while abroad.

During a trip to South Africa, Katie Bryan purchased The Essential Neil Diamond over a data connection via iTunes, and was horrified when her mobile bill eventually arrived.

Network provider Orange billed the 320MB download at £8 per megabyte due to charges for connecting while overseas and initially demanded that Ms Bryan pay the amount in full.

The telecoms firm eventually back-tracked and reduced the charge to £400 after three telephone conversations, but Ms Bryan was quick to criticise their practices.

‘I think Orange are preying on people who make a mistake while abroad. Why such a massive difference in cost? In England you would just pay the album price. There is no way this huge bill relates to the actual cost to Orange,’ she told The Daily Telegraph.

‘You hear of people doing this and you think, “Stupid person – why did you do that?” I do feel foolish. But I also feel it is morally wrong to be expected to pay this sort of money for a Neil Diamond album.’

They say there’s a song to fit every occasion – we give you Neil Diamond’s I Believe In Happy Endings (which is sort of is… sort of):